State Farm faces its detractors in San Antonio on the day of President Obama’s visit
Yesterday as the President spoke not three blocks away George Avery representing State Farm and Rob Cooper from Parts Trader faced the room at CIC in San Antonio for a two hour session with a few dozen speakers speaking mostly in opposition to the Parts Trader program. The Q and A session was headed off by Aaron Schulenberg and closed by Scott Biggs with almost unanimous opposition expressed by the group. There was little to no new information that came out during the session with perhaps the most notable speaker being a 25 year SF DRP high volume shop that is participating in the pilot who spoke against the program and his experiences to date.
Also of note one speaker asked Avery if he would “just tell us, is this the program we as repairers will be required to use if we are to remain select service, yes or no”. Mr. Avery’s response was ultimately to say yes.
I think it is noteworthy to suggest that attendees at CIC may not be a representative group and my sense is there is still a silent majority out there who are not coming forward. Also lacking in the discussion is any hard data showing the expected efficiency gains. In discussions afterward I was told, as I expected, it is just a little early for that data to be available and it is expected when it does surface that it will only be preliminary data as shops rework workflow and vendors get more familiar with the new model
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